


The Chosen Son

by chicagoartnerd



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Frigga, BAMF Frigga, Character Death Fix, Gen, Loki Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:06:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicagoartnerd/pseuds/chicagoartnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frigga isn't dead. But her return to Asgard is not what Loki was expecting. And now it is time for him to choose what he really wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chosen Son

**Author's Note:**

> This has spoilers for Thor the Dark World! Also a lot of references to Norse mythology. I wrote it the night after seeing Thor 2 because the fridging of Frigga, possibly the most powerful sorceress in Norse mythology, pissed me off. And I have a lot of Loki feels okay? And if anything is terribly wonky let me know. I didn't have a beta and probably missed some typos.

Illusions were trickier than he made them appear. Slipping from one form to the next like water wasn’t an easy thing to master. He was a creature of two worlds with no true home in either so it came better to him than most. But it was still far from a simple feat.

And yet Frigga had done so with ease. She was so skilled that he couldn’t tell half her illusions from their reality. They made things corporeal which should have been impossible. Soft or blunt depending on the material of the object she had brought into being with her magics. Her creations breathed with life. She was a true Volva. For all his trickery and mischief he was something else. Neither man nor woman, neither God nor Monster. Unfortunately. It would have been easier if he had been. The kind of power Frigga commanded was rare and he had not the skill for it. That level of illusion was something he had only managed once.

So a part of him had hoped. Desperately, that it was a ruse, some sort of plan woven like a tapestry on a loom. Warp and weft interlocking but never showing the full length of the cloth. In the end she had not come to see him. Not even in his dreams where Heimdall could not know of what they spoke of.

His mother, because she was the only mother who he had known, was more of a God than Thor or Odin would ever be. She was also far more judicious with her power it seemed. Flashy shows of prowess weren’t befitting a Queen and yet she had it, immense power and strength and love. Something that had eluded him all his life. She had the ability to make you love her. To listen to her. And she loved you even though you were a bastard, a foundling, a monster. So he had refused to believe.

For a time.

One thing that Thor would never understand was how Odin saw Loki because Frigga and Thor did not see him the same. They thought Odin loved him. But Odin saw another bargaining chip. Another weapon or relic to be looked after, minded.

The unmarred white walls of his prison held no time nor meaning. He could not wander the roads between the worlds to clear his head. Star walking in the darkness among Yggdrasil’s branches.  So he only had his mind to spin its tales, tell its lies, and spread its fear and doubt. And grief. He grieved for her.

Thor would say she died honorably and Loki would laugh and spit upon him. Honor was of little consequence to someone who was dead. And even less of a balm to the mourners. Could honor laugh with you and tell you stories of Vanaheim and Alfheim? Could honor hold you and chase away the storms that terrorized you as a child and later the ones that came from inside you? Could honor love you?

No honor meant less than nothing to Loki and he was in a prison cell in Asgard’s dungeons unable to see his mother laid to rest because of it. He had seen the funeral rights for the honored before but he would have instinctively sensed it. Known if it was really her essence released to the endlessness of space. But he was not there. Because he was evil, and disgraced, he could never see her again. Not even allowed to pinpoint the constellation in the heavens she had joined. Never to walk the long crystal roads and run his hands along the stars she now inhabited.

He could never again hug her.

A sob cut through his chest and something flew from his shelf. He breathed. Then it was the whole shelf. Objects made of gold and leather left black streaks and dents in the pristine walls of his cell. Their thumps and clanks were hollow and didn’t reach his ears. He upended all the tables and his bed. Snapping them into smaller and smaller pieces. Setting it alight with vicious little bursts of green flame. Loki wrecked the entire cell and it wasn’t even satisfying, it didn’t help ease his rage or pain. In the end he didn’t have anything left to break except himself.

The glass and the ash of burning books clogged his eyes and nose but he felt none of it. There was nothing in his life he regretted more than not being able to tell her good bye. To tell her that even though he was an imperfect creature he did love her.

Love her as his mother even though he truly had none. None that were alive to claim him any longer. There was a scream. It could have only been his but he wasn’t sure if it was truly aloud or not. It was pointless screeching. The wail of a dying beast. It did not feel any different from sitting still, empty, so he kept doing it. Until his voice gave out. Until blood stained his chapped and bitten lips. Until his body collapsed in on itself and left him panting in a heap on the floor. This was what ambition had gotten him.

This was what he had reaped. 

No one in his head to blame for her death but himself as he was not there to weave the plan with her. To make himself the sorceresses sacrifice. Maybe then Thor would have spoken of him with fondness again. Would tell tales of him with the word honor that meant so little to Loki but meant more than anything to Thor.  Maybe she would have held him as he died and he would have felt love. One last time.

There was to be none of that now.

And when Thor did come to see him only mild surprise registered in his mind. Thor couldn’t hide his disgust for the state he found Loki in. But he could understand it it seemed.  Loki wanted to be freed of the world. Not just the cell, but it was a start. He could see the threads starting to align; if he tugged a knot out here or pulled the weft taught as he slipped in he could change the future. Alter reality and perception. Make a grand and sweeping plan as great as any mortal could imagine of a God. He could certainly use Thor. And Thor’s beloved Jane Foster. He could even use his own body it seemed. Just once. Only for Thor.

No one else needed to know how he felt. No one else truly could. They were doomed to each other it seemed. Loki walked the lofty razor wire between love and hate always cutting his feet to ribbons and shredding his mind. The whole of the galaxy could burn and it wouldn’t matter. But damn if he would be letting any one else besides him be the one to light the tinder. All the while watching the light, sadness and resignation, leave Thor’s eyes. 

And so he helped Thor defeat Malekith. He helped him save Midgard and the nine realms once again. And while he did he went to see Odin one last time. Odin knew that Loki was the one to stand before him and yet did nothing to stop him. And when the Allfather died in his arms he strangely felt nothing. No triumph, no regret, just emptiness. Like a pit had opened up in his soul and swallowed him whole. Loki was alone. Truly. Not just in a self-imposed exile but there was no one left in the nine realms that loved him. Not even Thor would still care for his “brother.” With a deep sweep of his blade he had severed their last tie.

Loki waited for Thor to come to him. To make amends with Odin. And Thor did not disappoint. He made a valiant move and abdicated the throne. Loki was surprised but suspected Thor’s mortal love to be the cause. But then Thor was commending Loki for knowing more about rule than he ever could. And something faltered inside of him. The deadened bits of his conscience flared and he felt pain. Pain for losing everything in order to gain one hollow throne. The power he thought he wanted. 

A title that meant nothing without anyone he cared about to prove how well he ruled to. To prove that he was clever and intelligent and that he did know how to rule a realm. No one he cared about to rule over either. And so he watched Thor go and thanked him under his breath. He was had finally done it. Loki couldn’t hide behind his façade forever and he knew Heimdall was ever watching him to see what he would do with his new regency.

But all he did was rule. Fairly and justly. He even repaid one favor.  One large favor to someone who had tortured and enslaved him. But a favor owed no less. He did have some honor after all. Thor might have been proud of him if wouldn’t have to fight that being in the future for the infinity stones. And at the end of the day he would return to his chambers and shed his false skin and read. Or walk amongst the stars. Or breathe in the light of a distant red tinged sunset on a world made of ice. 

Loki found no comfort in the beauty of the realms he now helped govern but an odd sort of quiet had settled over his usually tumultuous thoughts. This was what he had always wanted. It was what he had been led to believe he always deserved. Fought over, fought for, killed, clawed, lied, and betrayed to have. And yet it felt like nothing. He was alone.

It was sitting by himself in the throne room, the guards dismissed, that something even he hadn’t expected happened. One second out of the corner of his there was nothing but pomp and gold and then she was standing there. Exactly as he remembered her. He couldn’t mask his shock and she smiled crookedly at him before speaking.

“Have you had your fun yet?”

He blinked slowly. Could it be his mind was manifesting her? Just another illusion? That for all his intellect he couldn’t deny or dissect because it was of her? Then she laid a soothing palm on his shoulder and he deflated. Both in relief and in defeat. She was alive and she was going to kill him. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about mother. Ruling is very taxing work and not something I have ever heard any one refer to as ‘fun.’”

She smiled down at him but it wasn’t a happy smile. He slunk slightly away from her but her grip on his shoulder went from reassuring to painful.

“Thor was right in choosing to defend the realms. He was never made solely for the throne and neither was Odin . Men of action rarely think of what those actions will become over time. The same was true of Odin’s father Borr.” 

Loki turned to her curious. She wasn’t seriously suggesting what he thought she was?

“It was truly Bestla who ruled. Easy enough to weave a war or rebellion or even the shift of worlds if it allowed her time to make decisions that would save Asgard in the long run. You have some of that foresight. But not as much as you should.”

He had read up on Bestla and Borr of course. Thor had detested learning the family genealogy as boy but it fascinated Loki. Looking back perhaps it was his true nature pointing the way but there were many rumors that Bestla was a Jotun seid woman. A witch and a shapeshifter. Like him. Like Frigga it seemed.

“Are you not enraged with me? Disgusted that I would kill thousands and resort to patricide to rule Asgard.”

“I am not happy with all that you have done in the name of becoming king. But Odin is not dead. The thing you killed was a facsimile. A very detailed illusion. After my passing he fell into the Odin Sleep and now lies resting somewhere safe.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as she said the last part. He would not try to find him now that she was back and in charge. There was no point.

“What do you intend to do with me then? Am I meant for the dungeons again or perhaps something more permanent? Because if you see me as your illusion of Odin did well what else is there for me?” 

It hurt more than the pain of her passing. That for all of her kindness she had still thought of him as Odin had. A weapon, a pawn.  Even Frigga’s love had been a lie. His momentary hope at her return had been blown out like a guttering candle by that bitter frigid wind. 

“No. That was part of the spell. That it acted and made decisions and listened to you as well as the true Odin would have. To my disgrace he loves you as much as the illusion did and I tried to make up for it. Which is why I praised you for your seior. Rewarded you for cleverness and chastised you if you were particularly wicked. I love you and Thor more than any souls in this universe and it is for you I have done this.”

He didn’t understand. For the first time there was no plan, no scheme, no clever way out he could formulate. She had faked her death to rule but to also make them fit to rule. In her own way she had inadvertently destroyed and saved both of her sons. Just how far did her prophesying go? Farther than Loki’s imagination and that was a long ways down field.

“Why?”

Frigga let go of him then and walked down the gleaming steps of the throne to stand at the base of them before him. 

“I wanted what every mother wants.  For her children to be happy. Both her children. I failed you in that and I am sorry. I had foreseen you and Thor ruling together as Odin and I once did but that was not what you both wished to happen it seems.”

He did not fail to grasp her meaning and raised an eyebrow while looking down his nose at her.

“You would have raised Thor a Jotun bride like Bestla was that it? Is that was you had hoped for me _mother?_ ”

The last word he spit bitter from his mouth. If there was one thing Loki loathed more than anything it was being tricked. Being made to be play the fool. The jester, the ass. Nearly as much as he hated being manipulated and Frigga had done just that. Not using vicious words and his clever tongue but her compassion and her love to steer both her sons on a path she wanted them to tread. Her eyes softened and she sighed deeply before she spoke.

“I made mistakes. I didn’t step wide enough to correct them. I let you grow up thinking you were Thor’s rival when I should have made it very clear you were meant to be partners, the sword and scribe hands of the same whole. Brothers in every sense of the word.”

“By misleading you in my intent I damned you to feel inferior. I damned Thor to see you as lesser. And for that I am deeply sorry. But all the other choices you made were your own. All the lives you have taken and destroyed rest solely on your shoulders. All of the pain you have inflicted on Thor and I is your burden. But you know this already.”

It was almost identical to the conversations he would have with her in his head. So much so that he stopped. No longer sure if she is truly there. Or if he was truly there. Perhaps all the horrible things that happened were only dreams or lies or illusions. Perhaps he was no God.

Something in Frigga’s eyes sparked with recognition and she smiled. There was some other thing at work around them. 

But the moment passed and he stood to leave the throne. Gracelessly he dropped two steps before crouching eye level with her as she stood on the marble floor of Asgard’s great hall. 

“So then why come back other than to mock me? To rule? Happiness was never in my nature so what do you think you have planned for me?”

He wouldn’t strike her but the thought had crossed his mind. Words were his weapon of choice anyway. Wounding her with his wit would be harder now that he was no longer sure she truly cared for him. Loki was vulnerable and it incensed him that he was made vulnerable by one of the only relationships in his life he had cherished.

Frigga’s eyes looked so exhausted that Loki wondered for the first time what this had cost her. All of her years of heavily manipulating the court of Asgard through illusions and words and her shadowed hands. Spending her time looking into every possible future, every possible outcome from even the smallest of choices. 

He would have been more impressed if he had been in on her deception. What hurt the most was that she took him for the same sort of weak-minded fool as Odin’s advisors and the Warriors Three. Then it occurred to him what power it would have given him over Thor had he known what she had planned for them and Thor did not. Which made him realize why she had not told him either.

If she truly did want he and Thor to be equals that is.

Because even if Frigga explained to Thor what she had done he could still not truly comprehend. Thor thought of her magic as “tricks.” He had said so more than once to wound Loki. He had baited him with the word trust. Frigga had never told Thor of her shadow games and manipulations; she had not trusted Thor with that. Where she had trusted him in all things. At least in her deception he and Thor were equals.

“I have come to give you a chance at that which you have been denied. The throne will be here for you if you decide you truly want it.  But first you must see what you have wrought thus far. Of what you could have been.”

He stared at her blankly. Surely she wasn’t referring to chasing after Thor to Midgard only to watch him woo his mortal Jane Foster. She couldn’t possibly think he would do anything but bring chaos to Midgard if he were left there to his own devices. That Barton and Romanoff wouldn’t kill him on sight. Or at the very least attempt it. So she was sending him to the other realms then? Perhaps the passageways between the stars?  He had wandered the universe and look where it got him the last time. No. That is not what she meant. Frigga knew him far too well because she smiled sadly at his perplexed glare.

“ You were raised as a prince of Asgard it is true. But what did Thor do with his birth right? What path will you choose? All ways are not open to you now. There are endless threads leading to this nexus. You can’t feel it just yet but it is here pulling at you, trying to tear you to shreds. Will you take the shuttle in your hands dear or be destroyed?”

He had once had a desire to prove himself to his father. The Allfather he once thought his father. Loki had once desired to show the world that Thor was brash and boastful not ready to be king. And he had. He had once desired to make his brother’s friends uncomfortable and make Thor look a fool. But he had given up that foolishness after learning of what he really was. Jotun. Then he had desired to destroy himself. Everything that had been a lie. His entire life. Loki didn’t seek to kill the Jotun because he wanted to prove to them he was worthy of being king of Asgard. He wanted to kill them because they ruined him. Destroyed any chance of being who he had been raised to be. And then that anger turned towards his family for lying to him. Pretending that what had been done to him was not important. Thor was important. And that was when he decided to destroy everything he had ever dreamed of, aspired to, and wished he could be.

The Chitauri found him hungry and fed him up fat with more hatred, more power, more scalding and searing pain. They twisted his already strong loathing of all that his brother was and made it an obsession. A task. He could still be king just not the same sort of king Thor was to be. Not the same sort of king Odin was.

He would be a benevolent God-king ruling absolutely. He was wrong. That sort of kingship did not come without the death of thousands, eventually millions. But what were ants to the sole of a boot? Midgard was a nest of ants. The pernicious red variety but ants nonetheless. Or so he had been led to believe. He had wanted to believe, still believed he had been right.

But upon his subsequent imprisonment and solitary confinement, his self-interrogations revealed he was just the same kind of king as Thor would have once been. The conqueror, the destroyer, the leader of an army of death. Borr killed all the dark elves and his son Odin almost killed all of the frost giants. Thor would have killed planets full of people to show his might and his control if he thought it just. But that wasn’t Loki.

He desired power but he was not like Thor. He was like Frigga. Loki’s power worked in much more subtle ways. That was why his Chitauri invasion had failed. Because it was not played to his strengths and because his brother, his biggest weakness, stood against him. Deep down in his wretched soul that was not how he had wanted to win. He had never come to Midgard to rule them like that.

After having Frigga’s web of illusions partially exposed to him he saw his feeble schemes for what they were. The play acting and games of a child. What he wanted was what she had done. Was still doing to him now in fact. He wanted to see the long game, the far-reaching consequences, and the shift of the realms around what choices were made and what lives were formed or broken.

He craved to know all of this and more because at his core Loki was as curious as Huginn and Muninn. He was also mischievous to a fault. That was all Loki really was. The scheming and plotting boiled down to those two things. Would it be fun to pull a trick on someone? Or how does this particular element of the world work and can I pick it apart and play with it? How far can I push this before it breaks, snaps, becomes something different?

Where could he feed these longings but in the halls of Asgard with Thor and his companions? Or in the caves and citadels of the nine realms where lurked the knowledge of how to triumph over death itself? Could he really find some other purpose suitable to his nature? 

 And if so was there anyone he cared about he could show it to? Besides Frigga. Now it seemed her sight was much the same as Heimdall’s. He could hide from her but he did not want to. 

So instead he left her there. Or at least he tried to. The hall melted to nothing, pooling like molten metal and dripping into the abyss as he attempted to walk away. He turned to face her but she was no longer standing there. Seated in the place of the throne was Yggdrasil, the world tree, and the nine realms spinning their glittering cosmos into the void. Her voice was soft and echoed across the emptiness. 

“Do you want to know what I saw for you? Or should I show you something else? Many things more exist than even I can see. Which thread Loki?”

A part of him desperately wanted to see himself as Frigga had foreseen him. Happy and clever and beside his brother in Asgard. Ruling together. But he was a vindictive creature and wouldn’t give himself or her the satisfaction.

“Show me what would have happened had I not let the Jotun into the treasure room on Thor’s coronation day. Show me Thor as king.”

She did not respond but the environment did.  Twisting up out of the nothing was the throne room again. The universe around him wobbling in splendid color before snapping into perfect focus. Thor was sitting on the massive golden structure speaking freely with Sif who did not kneel before him but appealed to him no less.

“You have been king for long enough to let your people know you intend to protect them. Why not destroy the brigand armies in Vanaheim or even the Jotun. Just to prove your might?”

“It is not a bad idea Sif but perhaps it is not the right time just yet. The glory of battle will come to us. It always does.”

She rolled her eyes and murmured something causing Thor to lean in closer.

“You have been listening to Loki again I see.”

Thor smiled fondly at her.

“Lady Sif my brother might be full of deceits but he has yet to lead me astray in these matters.”

Loki could not believe it. This made no sense. The Thor who he had exposed on his coronation day would have followed Sif into war many times over. What he was seeing must be an illusion created by Frigga to shame him.

“You underestimate his love for you.”

She was standing beside him and her hand materialized and wrapped around his arm.

“Should I show you how he defended you to his friends even as you destroyed the earth?” 

He curled his lip at her and was about to shout her down for a liar when he was tugged along. Pulled and warped to another scene. 

This time the room was warm and tinged with oranges of a feasting fire. It was Thor getting drunk and boasting with The Warriors Three and lady Sif. They were all younger and Loki recognized the skull of a firedrake that sat in the center of the massive oak table as they feasted. Loki had been there for the hunt but had survived it more singed than he been beforehand. So he did not join them for this particular celebration.

“And then he plunged his bare hand into the beast’s chest and ripped out its scaly heart!”

They all cheered at Volstagg commending Thor for his work. Thor laughed at him. 

“Ah but it wouldn’t have been so easy to do had Loki not charmed its feet to the cave floor.”

Fandral took a massive leg of mutton off the table with his rapier and bit into it before saying through the meat.

“That was just a trick though. You were the one who actually killed the drake and claimed its head for our table this night!”

Thor’s laughter died down and he looked into his half full tankard before meeting Fandral’s eyes.

“Why do you always belittle my brother’s victories in battle? Is it because he wields a weapon more deadly than your sword Fandral?”

He stumbled back from the table as if Thor had struck him.

“I meant not to belittle but surely everyone knows that an honest fight, fist to fist, scale to teeth, is one befitting a true warrior. Not a game of lies.”

“And where would we be without Loki’s help in battle friends? Tell me how do you think your skin would have fared had Loki not leapt into the beast’s mouth and stopped its fire at the beginning of the fight. 

No one came forward to challenge him and the party that had been jocular died to silence. Thor left soon after and they followed him down the torch lit halls of Asgard to the royal wing. But not to his own room. To his shock he went to Loki’s sick bed and sat beside him while he slept. His burned and healing forearm crossed over his chest.

“One day brother they will see you as I do.  As a true warrior and hero of Asgard.”

He ran one of his massive hands over the cold cloth on Loki’s forehead tenderly and sat for a long time beside him before leaving.

Something cold ran down his cheek and Loki went to swat at it before realizing he was weeping. Frigga turned to him beseechingly and he whispered.

“I didn’t know.”

She squeezed his arm comfortingly and said.

“He has always loved you best and yet you denied it. Denied yourself. That was one of your greatest failings. But we are not yet finished.”

Loki whipped to face her but it was too late they were once again falling through the ages, colors and sounds raged around them as they formed once more before something.

An explosion tore through the metal and steel building before them and debris rained down as a Chituari drone crashed into several cars full of screaming people.  It was the invasion of New York. And yet when he looked at the portal in the sky huge Chituari warships were pouring from it one after the other. Something was wrong. That didn’t actually happen. Stark and Romanoff had closed the portal before the fleet had been able to reach earth. 

He turned to her and she pointed to the sky. He saw Thor flying and swinging mjolnir while lightning surged around him in the darkening air. Loki watched frozen as Thor was struck by several lasers from the warship closest and then quickly run through by a passing solider on an attack schooner.  He fell limply, plummeting towards the ground. Only his cape fluttering as he crashed into the cement below, unmoving but making a massive crater around him. Without thinking Loki started to run towards him. Faster than his feet would normally carry him, but when he stood above Thor moments later he saw that he was dead. Frigga materialized next to her son’s body and stroked his lifeless gray face softly. The golden glow he always had was gone. Then she looked up at Loki’s face twisted in agony.

“What is this? What do you hope to accomplish by showing me this?” 

She rose from the crater and came to stand before him glowing in her life and power.

“This is the Chitauri invasion of earth led by Thanos, not by you.”

His eyes went wide as she continued. 

“I am not asking you to betray your nature. I am simply asking you to use your cunning in a better way. A more clever way. Did you know that Asgard’s war with Vanaheim was the work of Bestla so that years down the road Thor would have Hogun as a companion to save his life from the giantess Njnor so Thor could save all of Midgard from the return of Malekith. Are you starting to see?”

He was. But the question came to his mouth unbidden. 

“Was it the same with Jotunheim? Did you send Odin to retrieve the casket so that I would become your son and Thor’s…brother?” 

Frigga’s mouth became a brittle line. 

“That was not my design. I did not start the war on Jotunheim. But I did tell Odin of the Tesseract knowing that he would find you there and bring you home to his wife who had just had a new born son not too long ago.”

Loki hung his head and tried to breathe through his nose. His mind was screaming that it could not be so but all evidence suggested otherwise. Everything was starting to make more and more of a queer sort of sense to him. Frigga was not done yet though. 

“What happens here? Do the Midgardians live to triumph over Thanos?”

She looked down at the shattered body of her beautiful son and murmured.

“No. Not in this thread.”

“How do you do it? Surely there must be more than one lifetime you have observed in which Thor dies or I die? Surely many where I die.”

Her eyes searched his face as she came around to stand before him. 

“That is one of the prices you pay for foresight. I do everything in my power to stop those threads from getting pulled into the design. I have seen what happens when you choose not to heed what I have shown you here. I have seen what happens when you do.”

Frigga placed her hands on his shoulders and he bowed his head to her own.

“Do it then. Show me what it is you think will change me.”

She exhaled and the muffled war around them disappeared.

“I don’t want to change you or fix you my son. I want to make you what you always were only more. Only better at it, wiser in how you use that gift of yours.” 

He let a hopeless laugh escape his lips then bit down on them hard enough to draw a bead of blood.

They were back on Asgard in the royal gardens and below them Thor was playing with his hair fondly as Loki lay on a blanket before him. Ignoring him and reading in the brilliant late afternoon sun. He and Frigga went closer so that Loki could hear what Thor was saying to the version of him laying in the sun.

“Loki I know you are listening the least you could do it put down the book.”

He snorted but kept his back to Thor, his eyes still scanning the shifting blood red words on the pages before him.

“Not now Thor. I am just getting to the good part.”

“Why is it that whenever I want to speak of what happened on the dark world that you are ‘always too busy’ or just getting to ‘the good part’ in one of your tomes?” 

Loki sighed and turned the page.

“Because you have the uncanny habit of always finding me when I least want to be bothered.”

Thor smiled at him ran a hand from his hair down his neck and Loki visibly shuddered. He leaned in closer to Loki’s ear and his voice was low and clear.

“Is that so? What if I were to bother you with something other than words?”

Loki froze and then turned to face Thor, setting his book gently on the ground before him.

“Do not jest of such things like we are children any more. You know why I died for you on the dark world and now you are mocking me.” 

He looked hurt but didn’t let Loki push away from him. 

“You think I mock you in my affection? Do you truly not know? After all that I have done can you not see how much I love you brother?” 

Loki flinched and suddenly looked very small. His eyes were wide and fearful. 

“You have never said what you mean by it. Not in any way that I could understand.”

Thor seemed to think about this for a split second before pulling on the back of Loki’s neck and drawing their lips together. The kiss was short because Loki stumbled back panting and wild eyed. 

“Why now? Not when I threw myself upon you in my youthful foolishness. When I was still who you thought I once was, tricky but not evil. After all that I’ve done. All that I’ve become why?”

“Because I love you. I thought you were the God of perception, not the God of self-deceit. When have I ever deceived you?  I have been nothing but honest about what I feel. When you ask which of us you lied to you must point the finger at yourself.” 

All of the flushed color drained from his face. Thor was speaking something he had said so many times in his head. That all of it was lies, no one told the truth, so why should Loki even play at it. But Thor had never lied to him. He was right. It was so quiet when he said it Thor had to lean in towards his lips once more.

“I spoke the truth to you then. I am sorry.” 

Thor’s smile was more radiant than any light in the garden as he leaned forward and mouthed against Loki’s lips. 

“I know. I forgive you.”

Loki crumpled beside Frigga and said hoarsely.

“Stop it. I don’t wish to see any more.” 

Her voice was cold and detached, as she was no longer standing there with him in the rosy world of the scene.

“Then you must keep looking.”

He let out a growl before he stood to whip around for her face to shout in.

“This cannot happen and you know it. Why show me all of these things that will never be. You cannot alter what has already been woven without destroying the whole of the fabric. That was the first thing you taught me of magic. The past is done.”

Her voice came to his ears, hollow from behind him. 

“Yes and no. The past is both done and has yet to happen. There is a Midgardian phrase you might like, ‘Those who do not remember their pasts are doomed to repeat their mistakes.’”

Loki snarled and let his form warp and change into that of his female self. She was clad in gold and white with long rippling black hair. Beautiful and furious her green eyes shown with self-loathing and malice. Loki rounded on the scene below her and shouted. 

“Is this what you wanted mother? For Thor to have me as his mate? Then why not confine me to this form to seduce him? Why not make me his wife servant from the beginning?” 

Frigga did reappear just then and Loki took a step back from the shock of her nearly landing on top of her. She was glowing with the green and silver of her witchcraft and Loki tried not to shake as she felt it push down on her with the force of its immense power and anger. 

“Because that is not what would have made you happy and by proxy it would not have satisfied Thor either. Also you would have been no less capable as a woman so don’t you dare suggest it.” 

“Are you really so blind you foolish boy? Have I not taught you how to look at the world and see where the cracks are? Have I not taught you correctly to understand all the answers and chose carefully how you will proceed? Have you learned nothing from your past with Thor that you would ask me this?” 

Loki’s female guise fell from him like gray smoke and he stood slightly stooped before her. 

“You know the answer to that.” 

Frigga’s eyes snapped with green fire and the scene of redemption around them burned and curled into snarled black dust around them.

 She was standing before the throne looking down at him this time and he wasn’t sure if they were back in Asgard or if it was another one of her illusions. 

“Loki Friggason, prince of Asgard, silvertongue, and sorcerer. What do you chose?” 

She did not mean his naming as a slight but as a title of power and his essence stirred at the truth of it. 

Loki’s eyes fluttered shut and he saw himself as the Jotun prince fighting with teeth and ice to restore his people to glory, starving and clawing and scraping in the frozen waste. He saw himself destroyed, picked apart piece by piece along with the bifrost as it shattered and fell through space. The next thread he had given birth to a child that was fair haired and radiant, not a monster of his poisonous womb and Thor was there to hold her and beam down at Loki. Then he was on the dark world, he watched as the kursed killed Thor and did nothing, completely numb. Another possibility darted out and he stood hand in hand with Thor as they watched Odin and Frigga laid to rest in the stars, somber at the beauty of their souls alighting in the sky.

A darker one laid underneath it in the pattern where Loki was tortured, his chest cleaved to bare his still faintly beating heart as poison from a great snake dripped forever into his black and bloodied innards. He had no lips to gnash and no voice to scream in agony. He suffered with no tongue and thrashed alone forever. Loki gasped and his eyes flew open. He raised them from his own shaking hands and looked at Frigga, her face was carefully impassive. 

“Put me back in the dungeon. I think well in a cell. Oh and don’t forget to tell Thor you’re not dead. You wouldn’t want to be accused of being crueler even than me.”

She nodded once and Loki grinned maliciously as the guards assembled around him to take him once more below Asgard.

 

* * *

 

 

It was better than how he left it. Everything was put back to rights, not a book out of place on any of the intricately gilded shelves. He took his customary steps around its perimeter and noticed it was several steps larger but just as locked. No way for him to leave this time either. Good.

He let his magic rub over and under his palms like a pleased cat and called one of the illuminated books of stories to himself from the bookshelf. It snapped through the air and landed with a satisfying thud in his palm. They were not books from Asgard but of stories of Thor and Loki from Midgard.

His favorite being that of Utgarde-Loki of course. Because Thor had needed to be taken down a few pegs in legend as well as in real life. Also his downfall had been at the hands of a sorcerer named Loki so there was that. It was fun for him to read as a story anyway. He enjoyed it again and traced his delicate fingers over the age-stained color illustrations and smiled crookedly. When he finished he closed the book and walked the room twice before stopping in front of his bed.

 Loki decided to sit on the edge of it and call to the threads of fate again. When he was a girl first learning how to do this in order to work his illusions Frigga had warned him of looking too far. Now she was encouraging it in hopes of what he would see. And he was about to have plenty of time to see a lot. Loki felt his body lie back as his brain went flying into the tapestry Frigga had spent her whole lifetime weaving. Just as the other volva queens had spent nearly as long on theirs. Other lesser seid women had only been able to see the fray at the bottom of the grand design. And here was Loki weaving with the shuttle like Frigga herself. 

He had done as she asked and picked a thread. Knowing some of where it could lead he hadn’t picked the best of outcomes for himself because he knew he didn’t deserve it. But his mother should be proud because he didn’t pick the one that ended with his or Thor’s death either. Now he had plenty of time to watch and to look ahead it seemed.

He was sure it had been many weeks but he didn’t keep track of the days any more. Time no longer had much meaning now that he spent so much of it both in and out of reality. Loki slept sometimes but most often he didn’t. It was during one such rare sleep Thor decided to come visit him.

Loki didn’t open his eyes but he knew his brother was watching him through the shimmering chained window of his cell. So he wove a quick illusion to leave him sleeping in his bed while he sat up invisibly and walked over to look at Thor’s face. It was cloudy with an emotion he couldn’t read. Maybe it was several Loki didn’t know but Thor had his hand-spread palm first against the glowing barrier.

“You should come back when I am awake. I would be much better company. Well maybe not better per say but move lively surely.”

He materialized in his sleeping clothes directly before Thor and he watched as Thor took a step back and removed his hand. He didn’t look surprised only wary. Loki sat down crossed legged in one fluid motion in front of him so that they were almost eye level. 

“What do you plan to accomplish by watching me sleep Thor?”

He looked away from Loki and crossed his arms defensively over his massive chest.

“For all your cleverness do you know I used to do it often? When you were ill or injured. Sometimes even just because I wanted to see you without a condescending smirk on your face.”

Loki froze as he remembered what Frigga had showed him of Thor at the feast after killing the firedrake.

“I did not. Sorry to disappoint your sport then brother.”

And he let that malicious sneer grace his face again. Thor slammed both his fists into the barrier and made it wobble. Loki couldn’t stop from flinching and Thor opened his palms in surrender against the glow of the magic.

“It is not sport and it never was. Why must you do this? Has it not been enough already?”

This time it was Loki who threw himself against the barrier with rage. Thor did not back up but now all that separated their faces was the thin magical wall.

“No. Why do you do this? I am not nor will I ever be the brother you wanted. Nothing can change that, nothing can change me. Why do you even endeavor to try Thor? Answer me that.” 

His eyes did not leave Loki’s burning stare and his voice was low and steady when he spoke. 

“I have never sought to change you. You have only warped yourself to prove to me that I can’t. I have always wanted you as you are. Why do you refuse to believe that brother?”

Something inside Loki cracked and trembled and he was once very young again before Thor. He had the ability to make him feel like a boy, small and in awe of the massive force that was the mighty Thor. He hated it because it made him weak and vulnerable and Loki had spent all his life trying to teach the Aesir he was neither. But every time he fell before Thor. And he suspected unless he lost his soul completely like in one Frigga’s blackened threads he always would.

“I don’t believe that because what I am is the craven villain to your honorable hero.  I am not going to be good like you. I will always be deceitful and contrary and mischievous and I will always destroy what I love. How can you want that? How can you want me?” 

He didn’t care that there were tears in his eyes because when he looked back at him Thor he was crying as well. 

“You are not evil. I will not let you tell me otherwise. You have killed, and destroyed, and taken without any thought of the consequences.”

He stopped and looked at Loki hopefully.

“ So have I. We are different but we are not opposites, not enemies. We are brothers and I love you even if it is at times hard to do so.”

Loki felt his lip quirk up in a quick one-sided smile at the last part but he let it die and looked at Thor gravely again. 

“I will betray whatever you think you have found in me Thor. And when I do it will destroy most if not all of you. Would you still have me?”

“Yes.”

“Even if I killed father to take the throne? Even if I did the same to mother?”

“You would never-“

Loki violently flourished with his right hand and white hot magic blossomed with an inhuman crack to silence him.

“Thor! It matters not what you think me capable of because I am capable of it and quite a deal worse. What matters to me is this. What could I do to make you hate me, abandon all contact with me, kill me?”

“Nothing. Because I know the truth of you Loki.”

Loki snarled and threw himself backwards from the barrier as if Thor had struck him and sent him flying into his table full of fruit. Loki hit his shoulder against it and the pain brought back the magnitude of what Thor had said. What it meant for them both. He let his ragged hair fall over his eyes and didn’t look at Thor when he spoke to him.

“Did you know that in most of mother’s futures I bring about the end of the multi-verse?”

He still doesn’t look at Thor when he responds.

“Mother and I have spoken about you and I know what both of you have done. She has also informed me of what you intend to do, rotting away in this cell so you really don’t have to make a choice.” 

Loki threw his head back and laughed. It sounded more crazed than he had intended so he shut his mouth and curled in on himself again.

“But that is in fact a choice brother dearest. Did she not tell you that as well? I am quite sure you do not know half of what she showed me otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

Thor let out a loud sigh and tried to move to his knees so that Loki would look him in the face again. Loki let him attempt it but kept looking away from his eyes. 

“I remember when you used steal sweet cakes from the kitchens and stuff them in the spaces between your bedroom’s bookcases. You had much the same shift to your eyes when mother caught you at it.” 

Loki hurumphed and still didn’t look at Thor. 

“Not my finest hour. Now I would just magic them away to an alternate holding dimension of my choosing to summon them up and eat them out of thin air later.” 

Thor laughed warmly and Loki couldn’t stop the funny smile that ghosted his lips for a second.

“I know you very well Loki and yet you tell me at every chance you get that I don’t know you at all. Would you show me then? Show me what I have not seen about you that you would have me know?” 

Loki did look at him then with a broken and desperate expression.

“Odin told you I am Jotun but you have never seen it. I have remorselessly tried to conquer Midgard and would do it again if I felt so inclined. I would have murdered your human lover on our last mission if you hadn’t been watching me closely. I am jealous, exceedingly vain, and I want to wield more power over you than any other being. Should I go on? Because the list in long and would no doubt be very distressing for you to hear how I long to kill your father.”

Thor’s look was stormy but he did not budge from keeping eye contact with Loki.

“You also saved me and the warriors three from being devoured, flayed, dismembered, frozen, or from starting an inter-realm war more times than you have tried to destroy me.  You have mixed a brew that turned Fandral’s hair into flowering violets that sang for a week after he made jokes about your manhood at your 200th birthday feast.”

“You saved Jane from being killed by the ether on the dark world when you could have let her die and lied about being able to reach her in time. So I know the truth Loki brother to Thor and son of Frigga. That you are not half so evil as you intend to be. Stop this madness and come upstairs with me. Asgard knows of how you helped defeat Malekith. You will be welcomed at the feast.”

“When has any one but you and mother ever welcomed me at a feast Thor? Think of that and if you can tell me one instance I will come up with you.”

Loki curled his lip bitterly as he watched Thor try to think of a relevant example. They would not turn down his magic in counsel or battle but in all of Asgard none had welcomed Loki. And because of that he was infamous for being the cause of uproars at feasts with his cutting words. Sometimes so badly that others had called for Odin to sew his lips shut. Maybe things would have turned out differently if he had.

When it appeared Thor would never come up with an answer Loki interrupted the silence. 

“It would be much the same if you thought to take me with you to Midgard. No one would welcome me there either. But that one is entirely my fault I will concede.”

Thor snorted. 

“And telling every one at the feasting hall who had and hadn’t been unfaithful to their spouses, who had bastards and where they lived, and calling people lap dogs of various lords was not your fault? That’s why no one invites you to parties any more.”

Loki rolled his eyes.

“I would not have done that if everyone hadn’t decided to throw a feast without me and then proceed to spend the whole party debasing my name. You know if they had just had their party and not spoken of me I would have left them be. All of them goad and goad and yet I get blamed when I fight back. Do you not see your hypocrisy?” 

Thor was quiet for several minutes and each one of them grated on Loki’s nerves. 

“Just leave me. I wish to sleep.” 

He waved a dismissive hand at Thor and didn’t look back to see if he did. When Thor didn’t respond Loki stood up and walked to his bed but stopped before he got there. Thor was sitting on it watching him intently.

“I told you to leave.” 

“I came here to speak with you. You have been doing a fair job of it so far but there is more to be said.”

“No there isn’t. Leave me and go to your victory party. I am sure you have been missed.”

Loki swiped out with his slipper-clad foot and kicked Thor’s massive shin hard. It did more damage to his foot than Thor’s leg but it was satisfying. But as he moved to strike him again, this time with his fist Thor stopped him and held his hand in mid air. 

Then he was moving towards him and Loki had only a moment to let out a pained ‘ah’ before Thor was kissing him. It was Loki who pulled violently away even though he didn’t want to and normally wouldn’t have for any amount of forgiveness or power. 

“Stop this. What of Jane Foster? Why do this now when you could have tortured me like this ages ago?”

Thor looked wounded and reached out to cup Loki’s face but he turned it away at the last second.

“When mother came to see us on Midgard they had a long discussion alone. When they came back Jane was both beaming and sad. She had changed some how and I knew what mother had told her. I betray no one by touching you like this.”

“Except yourself. This is not a road you want to walk Thor no matter what mother has told you of her intentions.” 

Thor looked surprised at that and Loki’s look turned cruel.

“Ah did she not tell you of the throne of Asgard and their tradition of a magical bride for their kings? Did she not sing you the tale of Bestla, your grandmother, who was Borr’s Jotun sorceress?” 

He frowned at that and started to say something but Loki cut him off. 

“We were pawns in a bigger game. They never told us what it was but I tried to play it any way and look where we have both ended up. So do not start something with me Thor. It will not end in a happy way.” 

_No matter how desperately Loki wanted it to._

But a familiar look came over Thor’s face and his stomach dropped. _No_.

“I know better than most what being with you would be like. Do not insult me by telling me it is not what I want.” 

Loki shivered beneath his touch but stood from kneeling before him any way. He let his form shift and the ice that was always inside him turned him dark blue. Loki stared down at Thor with burning red eyes.

“This is what you want? Because this is what you shall get if you touch me again.”

Thor reached out to touch him fearless and determined and Loki hissed and turned back to his Aesir skin.

“Stop it! Your hand would have been ruined and it wouldn’t have been an illusion this time!”

Thor wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him down to sit one leg on either side of his lap. 

“I was ready to make that sacrifice if it proved to you my sincerity.” 

Loki struggled weakly but it just made him wish to stay where he was on Thor’s lap even more. He cursed him. Thor chuckled and Loki felt it reverberate up through his body and had to stifle a groan. 

“I will kill you one day.” 

Thor smiled sadly while pushing some of Loki’s hair behind his ear.

“You might. But I am willing to take that risk. Are you willing to take one of your own?”

Loki wanted so badly to hit him. Thor already knew he had won. That in the end Loki would do anything for him, to him in this case. He was royally and entirely ensnared and he submitted to it for the first time in his life. It felt amazing. There was a sad sense of freedom in letting go what little control he thought he possessed over his emotions when it came to Thor.

And Thor was very eager to oblige his hands wherever they went.

He peeled Loki’s shirt from his shoulders. Loki watched him in wonder and then laughed darkly and evaporated the rest of their clothes to some far off space. Thor didn’t seem surprised at all and instead used his teeth to explore the new found skin. Loki had done this before. Many many times himself with an illusion of Thor. Many more times thinking about Thor while his own hand touched and laid his body bare. But it had never been so intense. 

They were wound together panting and neither one had once touched the other’s cocks’ and yet here he was about ready to come simply from the thought. This time he might not last impressively long but the promise of another round awaited him along with Thor’s infamous stamina.

He flipped them over so that he was curled above Thor and finally ground down against him. They both moaned and Thor grabbed his thighs so hard Loki was sure they would bruise. Good. His pace was erratic and frantic and he watched hungrily as Thor thrust up against him, helpless beneath him.  Thor was watching him too as Loki writhed on top of him and when he pulled Loki down to take his nipple in his mouth he cried out and came all over Thor’s chest. Flushed and slightly disappointed in himself Loki started to reach down to take Thor in his hand but he stopped him.

“I wish to come inside you. Is that agreeable?” 

Loki laughed giddily. He felt something pull taught around him and several new opportunities presented themselves. Dare he take this intimate moment as a power play? Of course, he was the God of badly times power plays. 

He grinned wickedly and without any further prompting sunk down onto Thor’s cock. Thor let out a breath like he had been winded by an opponent three times his size and Loki road him mercilessly. Thor had to hold on desperately and soon enough was throwing his head back in climax as Loki grinned widely down at him. Yes he would have Thor this way and many other ways before the night was over. And if the thread he had pulled into the weft was any indication they would have a daughter by the years end. Then there would be nothing that could draw Thor away from him.

He didn’t need to know Loki knew all this. Thor didn’t need to know too very much to succeed which had galled him in the past but now it made Loki’s job so much easier. He was quite sure if he listened hard enough he could hear Frigga laughing at him but he didn’t care.

Loki rolled off of Thor and laid down beside him. Both of their bodies were sticking together with sweat but he didn’t care. For the first time since they were children he felt like he and Thor were equals. Partners. Two sides of the same force that would rule over Asgard and set their own form of order about the nine realms. Even if Thor’s order involved a hammer and Loki’s involved a carefully crafted half-truth. This was what Frigga had meant by him being true to his nature and still succeeding.

And damn that woman but she was right and she knew it. Had known it for far too long. Her machinations hurt him less now that he was wrapped in Thor’s naked arms. He intended to stay there for the rest of time and not even Thor could pry him away. Loki would make sure no fates interceded or threatened this. He would fight viciously to keep what he had achieved. A child was only one of the many steps. Their fevered sex had not actually been the first step. Thinking too far ahead was what it would mean for him to rule.

When Thor turned to him and smiled dreamily Loki couldn’t stop the same stupid smile from gracing his own lips. Thor kissed his smile and they both laughed and fell into a blissful sleep. Loki didn’t care if anyone found them like that.  In fact let all of Asgard know what they had done it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. He could see that now. 

And it was more twisted and splendid than anything he could have dreamed. When he closed his eyes he saw Frigga smiling from her quarters high above them and he smiled back.  The vision vanished and he laid there next to Thor alone in his head.

Finally something had gone his way. Even if it just so also happened to be her and Thor’s way as well. You couldn’t always have your cake and eat it to.

Oh yes he could get used to this kind of power, this kind of life. Hopefully the universe could get used to him this way as well. If it couldn’t he would just have to reshape it. Any way that he could. Which was what Frigga had truly been asking of him as her replacement as the witch queen of Asgard.  He would once again make her proud like he had the first time he had summoned their shared green flames on his tiny finger tips. He would bring that smile back to her lips and he would have the throne and Thor his way.

It was going to be good to be queen.  

 


End file.
